Trump

[Jolly]

C'mon folks, here's your chance. Can the opportunist cop-out and tell me what Donald J. Trump is for.

Do you know? Or is all that you know, what you parrot from the MSM?

[jon-nyc]

He's for himself.

[Doctor Phibes]

I was wondering when we were finally going to get round to a discussion of Donald Trump

[Catseye3]

No opportunist copout. You want to know, I'll tell you. This violates my sincere wish to not discuss Trump, but since you've goaded me, I will share two facts about Trump. To know and more important, to believe these two facts is to know everything you need to know about Trump.

1.) The chief reason there is irreconcilable discord in this forum over Trump is that the two factions are arguing about two different entities. It's like comparing apples and bicycles.

There are two Trumps. There's Real Trump and Normalized Trump. Ne'er the twain shall meet, and each tribe is committed to their own version. Thus it will always be, unto the end of time, because even after they're both dead, the Normalized Trumpers will martyr their guy as the Ultimate Leader.

2.) Trump is 100% percent governed by fear. Everything he does and says is motivated by the obsessive need to avoid blame and not be punished. Trump has two ways of dealing with people: He bullies (to demean and therefore render threatless to himself) or he placates (to recruit as allies and therefore render threatless to himself). If you can manage a thought experiment, where you run his every deed and utterance from the beginning through this filter, he will make perfect sense to you as a human being. Warning: If you do this and believe, it will scare the everloving shit out of you.

Believe or don't believe, I don't care. I won't defend any of this because I don't feel like it, because the truth has been obvious from the beginning, and because I'm sick to death of being reminded of this man's existence.

There. Now I will return to my silence on Trump.

[Horace]

Perhaps someone in the business of avoiding blame and punishment at all costs, due to an essentially cowardly character, would not seek the presidency. Just a thought.

[bachophile]

A theme which has been running through Bolton’s book is trumps unmasked envy of tyrants like Putin and Kim Jong Un. You ask what he’s for. I think he wants to be the center of a personality cult.

I don’t think he is left or right or center. And I don’t think he gives a damn about America. He just wants to be worshipped and or feared like his idols are.

Problem is that he just doesn’t have the personal charisma to pull it off.

[Loki]

I think he sincerely believes he is right and everyone else is too weak to fight for what is truly good for the country.

I think the rest of the comments about personality are interesting and many on point but I believe his primary motivation is my first sentence. Of course he would want all the credit given his ego needs and blame others (their weakness or really bad ideas) for any failure.

[xenon]

[Copper]

Look at cnn sometime

And substitute your name for his

You won't like it

[Jolly]

Not a single damn person has actually answered the question.

Do you not know or are y'all incapable?

[Renauda]

@Jolly

Ask the guy who posted just before you.

[Aqua Letifer]

@jon-nyc said in Trump:

He's for himself.

I think he almost always conflates that with "winning" generally, so I'd say both in equal measure.

But I'm guessing this isn't what Jolly had in mind so we lose the game.

[Horace]

IMO he got elected largely by saying out loud the common distaste for the socially militant woke elements of our culture. I think his distaste for that element is genuine, and I happen to believe that it comes from a pro-social place.

[Loki]

@Jolly said in Trump:

Not a single damn person has actually answered the question.

Do you not know or are y'all incapable?

The Trump Doctrine: America First, Northern European Values, robust economy and high employment across races and genders. Fair trade agreements and burden sharing. An immigration policy that has closed borders such that people who meet criteria can get in.

[Rainman]

I think I don't know what Trump is thinking. I'm just not able to read minds.

As to Big D, he's looking really tired lately. It's not easy being his age. So much easier to sit on a porch, rocking back and forth. Or, being a former president and criticizing from the recliner.

Not sure what Jolly is looking for. Fishing for something, catch, then club the head to kill?

[Larry]

@Catseye3 said in Trump:

No opportunist copout. You want to know, I'll tell you. This violates my sincere wish to not discuss Trump, but since you've goaded me, I will share two facts about Trump. To know and more important, to believe these two facts is to know everything you need to know about Trump.

1.) The chief reason there is irreconcilable discord in this forum over Trump is that the two factions are arguing about two different entities. It's like comparing apples and bicycles.

There are two Trumps. There's Real Trump and Normalized Trump. Ne'er the twain shall meet, and each tribe is committed to their own version. Thus it will always be, unto the end of time, because even after they're both dead, the Normalized Trumpers will martyr their guy as the Ultimate Leader.

2.) Trump is 100% percent governed by fear. Everything he does and says is motivated by the obsessive need to avoid blame and not be punished. Trump has two ways of dealing with people: He bullies (to demean and therefore render threatless to himself) or he placates (to recruit as allies and therefore render threatless to himself). If you can manage a thought experiment, where you run his every deed and utterance from the beginning through this filter, he will make perfect sense to you as a human being. Warning: If you do this and believe, it will scare the everloving shit out of you.

Believe or don't believe, I don't care. I won't defend any of this because I don't feel like it, because the truth has been obvious from the beginning, and because I'm sick to death of being reminded of this man's existence.

There. Now I will return to my silence on Trump.

That is the dumbest rant so far today. Not one single bit of it comes anywhere close to being a rational thought.

[Horace]

@Rainman said in Trump:

I think I don't know what Trump is thinking. I'm just not able to read minds.

As to Big D, he's looking really tired lately. It's not easy being his age. So much easier to sit on a porch, rocking back and forth. Or, being a former president and criticizing from the recliner.

Not sure what Jolly is looking for. Fishing for something, catch, then club the head to kill?

My mind-reading of Trump is helped along by listening to interviews with Trump Jr. What I described about Trump seems a central angle for Trump Jr as well.

[Copper]

He has been known to be impolite, occasionally.

But not so much anymore.

I believe he takes the job seriously, even so, it is hard for him to subdue his NYC upbringing.

[Klaus]

I don’t understand Jolly’s question.

[George K]

@Klaus said in Trump:

I don’t understand Jolly’s question.

I think he's trying to suss out the difference between what people think of Trump's policies vs what they think of Trump's personality.